Skype in the Classroom is a website taking advantage of the global reach of Skype to connect teachers around the globe!

As the site explains:

Skype in the classroom is a free community to help teachers everywhere use Skype to help their students learn. It’s a place for teachers to connect with each other, find partner classes and share inspiration. This is a global initiative that was created in response to the growing number of teachers using Skype in their classrooms.

Once teachers create a profile that sets out their interests, specialties and location, they can create projects. Projects are a way for teachers to find partner classes, partner teachers or guest speakers for a specific learning activity. You can browse through projects or even search by keyword, which makes it easy for teachers to share expertise and collaborate on projects even when they don’t already know each other.

Teachers can also browse through a members-only directory to find teachers who can offer them help, or whom they might be able to help. Once teachers find someone they’d like to connect with, they can add that person as a Skype contact. There’s also a directory of resources to help teachers share inspiring videos, links and tips around using in their classrooms.

While there is a lot you can do on Skype in the classroom, there are also a few things you can’t do. This is a community for educators to work on education-related endeavours. It is not a place intended for personal projects or for anything from which you might make any commercial gain.

Using their Skype accounts, teachers can collaborate on projects, connect with other teachers around the world and discover new inspiration for their classrooms.

The site is young – it was launched at the end of March, so is only two months old. But at time of writing, you can already find over 12,000 teachers, 500 projects and 450 resources on the site.

This is the introduction to an article by Jeff Fifield, Curriculum Facilitator at Colegio Maya in Guatemala, which was published in NewsLinks:

Coming Together – Targeting Success was the title of Colegio Maya’s (American International School of Guatemala) Strategic Planning Summit.

It captured well the objectives for the innovative and dynamic event to generate dialogue in bringing the learning community closer together to set future targets for school improvement.

Utilising an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach, which aligned to the school’s culture, allowed the school’s stakeholders to engage in a meaningful and energized experience to begin creating the shared vision for school improvement.

The truly magical mix included students, teachers, administrators, parents, Board Members, as well as former members of the school community.

State Senate President Pro Tem, Rosa Franklin, who is a Democrat from Washington State, understands the power of negative labels. She wants 54 state law designations such as “at risk” and “disadvantaged” to be re framed to a new term, “at hope”.

Here is what she said: “We really put too many negatives on our kids. We need to come up with more positive terms.”

Senator Franklin believes that this could lead to a paradigm shift in State Government and in classrooms.

The board meeting, conducted via telephone conference, focused on the activities of participants in expanding the use of strengths-based approaches in the education of children and increasing the practice of Appreciative Inquiry.

Two members (Sue James and Robin Stratton-Berkessel) described in glowing terms their experience of the Appreciative Inquiry Conference that was held in Nepal in November of 2009. High points related to location, cultural diversity of attendees and applications of AI in the community, healthcare and spiritual arenas.

The group then brainstormed recommendations to make the website more dynamic including brief interviews of board members, stories of interest highlighting education in emergent areas, and stories reflecting the power of children and links to interesting articles.

An overview of Voices of Learning in Canton, Ohio. in which 6 schools participated, was presented and overall was a success.

The meeting ended with plans to complete the Leap of Learning Manual and enroll interested teachers, school administrators in the training before publication as well as regional offices of education and education boards.

In my varied career, including my time as the first UNICEF Regional Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean, I have worked for the rights of the child in Peru and around the world.

Last year I had a wonderful time sharing Peace Ambassadors workshops with women and girls from India, Nepal, and Greece.

I just completed three presentations at the International Conference on Human Development that took place in Lima.

Now I am preparing to journey to Slovenia and Croatia to work on intercultural issues and coping and resilience in emergency situations.

All my work is peace education. The heart of peace education is understanding people’s lives, dreams, cultures, and practices and appreciating them in whatever contributions they make to society.

Peace education encompasses flexibility, creativity, discovery, and finding value in every way that collectivity can be built for the common good. Values such as cooperation, trust, solidarity, and respect are essential for peace building.

As Mahatma Gandhi said:

If we want true peace in the world, we shall have to start with the children. We will not have peace in the world if we continue to violate children’s rights.

To build a global culture of peace we must build a collective vision in which the culture of peace features presented in the UNESCO Manifesto are expressed in our everyday life: Continue reading →

What Works! is designed to shine a spotlight on strengths-based approaches to preschool teacher–driven change in early childhood learning environments.

The conference will be conducted entirely online, so participants may attend whenever their schedules permit.

The real-time workshops will be recorded and made available to attendees throughout the conference.

Co-sponsored by a wide range of agencies and organizations dedicated to the education and welfare of California’s youngest children, this online conference is underwritten in part by a grant from the Packard Foundation to the Institute for Teaching and in part by additional funding from the California Teachers Association.

The conference is open for registration to anyone who is interested in or passionate about early childhood education.

There is no conference fee for members of the sponsoring organizations or for preschool teachers and daycare providers.